My Inventions (1919)
Source: My Inventions: The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla
Context: From childhood I was compelled to concentrate attention upon myself. This caused me much suffering, but to my present view, it was a blessing in disguise for it has taught me to appreciate the inestimable value of introspection in the preservation of life, as well as a means of achievement. The pressure of occupation and the incessant stream of impressions pouring into our consciousness through all the gateways of knowledge make modern existence hazardous in many ways. Most persons are so absorbed in the contemplation of the outside world that they are wholly oblivious to what is passing on within themselves. The premature death of millions is primarily traceable to this cause. Even among those who exercise care, it is a common mistake to avoid imaginary, and ignore the real dangers. And what is true of an individual also applies, more or less, to a people as a whole.
II–II, 188
Original Latin http://www.corpusthomisticum.org/sth3183.html: Sicut enim maius est illuminare quam lucere solum, ita maius est contemplata aliis tradere quam solum contemplari.
Summa Theologica (1265–1274)
Variant: Better to illuminate than merely to shine; to deliver to others contemplated truths than merely to contemplate.
“The world's most sensible person and the biggest idiot both stay within us.”
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 562.
"The Beauty of the World" (c.1725), from the notebook The Images of Divine Things, The Shadows of Divine Things, The Language and Lessons of Nature (published 1948).
Introduction à l'histoire universelle, new ed. (Paris: Hachette, 1879), p. 136
Introduction to Universal History, 1831
"Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero" http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/faith/interviews/makiya.html, PBS Frontline (2002)
"Ballad of the Double-Soul"
The Certain Hour (1916)
Context: In the beginning the Gods made man, and fashioned the sky and the sea,
And the earth's fair face for man's dwelling-place, and this was the Gods' decree: — "Lo, We have given to man five wits: he discerneth folly and sin;
He is swift to deride all the world outside, and blind to the world within:
So that man may make sport and amuse Us, in battling for phrases or pelf,
Now that each may know what forebodeth woe to his neighbor, and not to himself."
